This invention relates to an artificial liver adapted for an artificial liver supplementing apparatus used for subsidizing the function of the liver of a patient who has a liver disease such as a severe hepatitis and, more particularly, to a method of fabricating frozen fine liver pieces capable of preserving the frozen liver, an apparatus for freezing to execute the same method, and a freezing vessel for fabricating the same.
There is, heretofore, a biological artificial liver which utilizes the living liver of an animal (a dog) retained in a living body as the above-described artificial liver, but such a liver should be provided in the vicinity of a patient (the dog). A dialysis of blood has already been carried out with a cellophane membrane, a PAN membrane, a cation exchange resin, an activated charcoal, an albumin or a hydron as a nonbiological artificial liver, but such dialysis can only supplement the latter of the metabolic function and the detoxicating function of the liver, thereby resulting in unsatisfaction in the results of the therapy.
Therefore, it has been tried to employ an artificial liver used from a living liver excised externally from an animal. However, when the liver of a dog or a pig is used in this manner, the immunological difference between the liver of the dog or pig and a human being is large. A large result cannot be expected even in this case. The liver of a baboon has less such problems, but the probability of obtaining the liver of the baboon is difficult.
It is heretofore known that the liver has its function even in the state that the liver loses its normal state as an organ and finely divided into tissues or individual cells. From this standpoint, the human or animal's livers of sliced state are already used as artificial liver.
In this case, it is required that the artificial liver can endure against the preservation for a long period of time and can be thawed and used as required.
To this end, the above-described artificial liver is frozen for the preservation, but this method includes removing blood, slicing the excised liver in the millimeter order of thickness, and freezing the sliced livers with liquid nitrogen. When the artificial livers thus obtained are thawed used for the artificial auxiliary liver device, its urea producing function and glucose producing function as the liver of the artificial livers are extremely smaller than the case that fresh liver is used, finished in a short time, and cannot be expected for sufficient practical effects.